Monday, April 18, 2011

How to Dress Well is the moniker of R&B singer, Tom Krell. As a little boy, Krell loved late-‘80s and early-‘90s R&B artists including Keith Sweat and Ready for the World. In high school he played in various metal and hardcore bands, then switched to making drone-based music in his twenties. Krell made live experimental music as How to Dress Well by looping layers of his voice. He released the first How to Dress Well EP, The Eternal Love, in October 2009. Love Remains doesn’t sound calculated -- often, it sounds like it was recorded by accident. Krell reworks the R&B of his childhood just as deftly as he repurposes Love Remains’ conventionally bad recording techniques. The fluidity of the melodies and the spare beats are rooted in late-‘80s/early-‘90s R&B -- it’s no coincidence that one of How to Dress Well’s definitive songs, “Ready for the World,” shares its name with the ‘80s R&B group. Love Remains is a striking debut, one that speaks to how we listen to and remember music we love, and the impact it makes on everything else we hear.